


Death in a bowl

by lwise2019



Series: Mikkel's Story [16]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21588334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019
Summary: The food has to be eaten ...
Series: Mikkel's Story [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536739
Kudos: 11





	Death in a bowl

It had snowed during the night and was still snowing by morning. Lalli had gone out scouting around midnight and come back empty-handed as even _he_ couldn't find prey in this. There was no way around it; Mikkel prepared candle soup and hoped for the best.

"This is perfect!" Sigrun cried, "Awesome and great!"

"The _food?_ " Emil's tone was utterly disbelieving.

"No, the weather! The food looks _disgusting._ Just saying," she added, glancing at Mikkel.

"The food is fine," he answered coldly, stalking back into the tank.

"Pity about all the snow, though," he heard Emil observe behind him, "We'll just get stuck somewhere.'

"The snow is great! It'll dull our sounds. This is our chance to go straight for the heart of the city! Mikkel!" she shouted, changing the subject, "Is this poison ready for eating yet?!"

"Yes!" There was no sense getting annoyed. The food really did look disgusting and really did need to be eaten before it cooled and congealed.

"MIKKEL!! Did you melt _candles_ into this sludge?"

"Surely I would never!" he answered in an offended tone.

"What did he say?" He heard Emil ask, and "That he didn't," Sigrun answered. Well, technically he hadn't actually said no.

While they fixed bowls of the mess he'd prepared for breakfast, he went through their haul from the previous day. Silvery disks? He knew approximately what they were. The Old World had had devices that could pull pictures and sounds out of such disks, but the last such devices had succumbed to age long before he was born. He held up a disk, thinking of the marvels that were hidden within that shiny surface ... but they couldn't pull them out. No one could and, according to Icelandic scientists, no one would ever be able to. The things were useless. He carried them out of the tank and dumped the lot in their trash heap.

"So, farm guy," Sigrun addressed him as he stepped out, "I've decided that we will -- Whoa, really! Calm down! I'm sorry I called your food death in a bowl, now stop _raging!_ "

"I'm only disposing of this garbage."

"Ohhh, I see. You didn't know what old world gramophones look like, so you became confused and thought they were trash. Don't feel bad, I didn't know what they were before Emil told me."

He _did_ know what gramophone records looked like, and there were a few devices able to reproduce sounds from _those_ , if they weren't too badly damaged. "And I'll have you know that I've seen Emil's educational records, and we'd all benefit from disregarding any wisdom he chooses to share." He could have kicked himself. Things had been going so well with Captain Sigrun ...

"First of all, I _know_ you just called my right-hand warrior _stupid_." Apparently she'd got the gist of it but at least not the whole thing. "Second of all -- _you're_ stupid." That did it. He gave her a polite nod and returned to the tank. There was plenty of cleaning up to do.

* * *

Sigrun was eating off by herself. Emil had taken his own breakfast and Lalli's to a low wall some ways away from the tank, where Lalli had for some reason chosen to sit. Tuuri was keeping Reynir company between the tank and the two boys, leaving Mikkel in blessed solitude. Something was going on, though. In the still, cold air, Reynir's voice came to him perfectly clearly: "Do you know what your cousin is doing?" And hers: "Oh, that? Don't mind him. It's just mage stuff."

Mikkel looked out briefly to see if he needed to deal with whatever was going on, but all he saw was Emil holding his breakfast bowl, a bloody mess in the snow before him (just how violently had he killed that dog Beast?), and Lalli for some reason well up in a tree. Nothing that required him to take a hand.

"Did I tell you that I think there's a 99 percent chance that _I'm_ a mage too?" Reynir was asking excitedly.

"No, what, really? What can you do?"

"Well ... nothing really." Now there was a statement that Mikkel could entirely agree with. " _Yet!_ But I'm sure I'll figure out a skill soon!" And there was a statement that he sincerely doubted.

"No offense, but you're probably _not_ a mage then."

"That's fine, you don't have to believe me. I'll ask your cousin to teach me something cool next time we talk, then I'll be useful and great!"

"Okay," Tuuri answered cheerily.


End file.
